As computer devices and systems continue to advance and become more complex, effective and efficient techniques for transferring data between various components in computer systems have become more and more critical in system design and implementation. In general, it is desirable to maximize the data transfer capability between the various components such as integrated circuits (IC's) within the constraints that exist in the respective system environment. In those cases where data communication is needed in both directions, several techniques have been developed and employed to facilitate data transfer in both directions such as dedicated full-duplex (e.g., bi-directional wiring), token passing half-duplex (e.g., uni-directional wiring).
Generally, tradeoffs have been required with respect to cost and performance of various techniques or implementations. For example, in the case of full-duplex implementation, bandwidth and the associated infrastructure (e.g., pads, packages, wiring, power reserve, etc.) are underutilized when uni-directional traffic passes across the interface or bus (e.g., using only two lanes on a four-lane bridge, etc.). In the case of a dedicated uni-directional bus or interface (e.g., half-duplex), performance is sacrificed when bi-directional traffic is queued and traffic in one direction is stalled waiting for traffic in the other direction to clear (e.g., the case of one-lane bridge). Accordingly, the traditional or conventional techniques as described above are ineffective and inefficient to achieve a proper balance between performance and cost and data transfer between the various components is not optimized.